As research and development in modern medicine advances, new cures and treatments are being discovered to treat patients with various diseases and illnesses. In response to such discoveries, pharmaceutical companies need to produce a plurality of medications and prescription drugs, many of which are provided in pill or tablet form, for health practitioners to prescribe and administer to patients. Unfortunately, many patients, such as geriatric patients, younger children, and comatose or physically impaired patients, have difficulties with or are incapable of swallowing a pill.
Typically, a health care provider will crush or pulverize a pill into powder form, using a mortar and pestle, so that the predication may be mixed with food or dissolved in a liquid. Although effective, the use of a mortar and pestle is very tiresome and time consuming as it requires repeated crushing and pounding. Furthermore, airborne particles of the medication may be released during the pulverizing process. Also, once the pill bas been pulverized into powder form, some of the medication may be left in the mortar when it is transferred out to administer to the patient. Not only is there a chance that the patient may not receive a full dose, but there also exists the possibility of cross-contamination when the mortar and pestle is used to pulverize another type of pill.
There are numerous pill crushing devices available in the art, including manual, spring-loaded, and motor driven devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,622,949 to Baswick et al issued Sep. 23, 2003 describes a portable solenoid driven medicine crushing apparatus comprising a solenoid mounted within an enclosure wherein the solenoid engages a crushing ram in an attitude for moving vertically downward when the solenoid is energized. The crushing ram is released from a return spring when the solenoid is energized and the crushing ram engages a cup assembly to crush the medicine sandwiched between an inner cup and an outer cup of the cup assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,666 to Sussman issued Nov. 26, 1991 discloses a portable pill crusher similar to that of Baswick in which a cup is inserted underneath a ram where the ram is actuated by a cam drive arrangement to force the ram downwardly onto the pills within the cup.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,523,766 to Watt issued Feb. 25, 2003 discloses a portable pill crushing device which has a slot in an upper surface into which pills can be dropped. A bag feeding device feeds bags from a supply so that the pills are dropped into the bag and the bag closed by a closing member. A horizontally actuated ram acts to impact on the pills in the bag while the bag is held by the closure member. The bag containing the crushed pills is then dispensed through a bottom opening in the housing.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,386 to Jensen issued Jul. 2, 1996 discloses a pill crusher in which pills in a pouch are inserted through an opening in a top surface into a container in the housing and the pills are crushed by a spring actuated ram which is released from a latch and driven by the spring to provide sufficient impact to pulverize the pills in one stroke.
U.S. patent application No. 2005/0127218 to Demske published Jun. 16, 2005 discloses a portable pill crushing device which uses rollers through which the pouch containing the pills passes for crushing between the nips of the rollers.
Other devices are provided in various arrangements shown in a number of prior patents which use mechanical crushing arrangements driven by a hand operated lever. These have the advantage of being inexpensive and simple but have the significant disadvantage that they require a lever action by the operator which can cause stress related injuries.